[YouTube link for mobile viewing]

Attention BlackBerry® PlayBook™ tablet developers! As a follow up to our BlackBerry PlayBook Tablet Webcast series, we’ve put together a video overview demonstrating how easy it is for developers to use the BlackBerry Tablet OS SDK Beta2 for Adobe® AIR® and the BlackBerry PlayBook Simulator Beta to develop BlackBerry PlayBook applications.

In the above video, I walk through deploying your app to the BlackBerry PlayBook Simulator and the similarities between the Simulator and testing your app on an actual BlackBerry PlayBook tablet. I also demonstrate how the BlackBerry Tablet OS SDK integrates directly into Adobe® Flash Builder 4 and the GUI builder in Flash Builder “Burrito”.

With the tools available to developers, practically anyone can create a BlackBerry PlayBook application, so start building! You might also be interested in learning that developers who create a qualifying application for the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet prior to its initial North American release are eligible for a free BlackBerry PlayBook tablet.

BlackBerry Tablet OS Development Resources (SDK, Simulator, Webcasts)

Don’t forget get to also check out my friend Matthew’s new BlackBerry PlayBook Web Fidelity video on the Inside BlackBerry blog, which demonstrates rich multimedia, Adobe Flash games and social networking websites like Facebook running in the BlackBerry Browser.

Thanks also to our friends at Universal Mind for providing the code and app used in the video! For more information, please visit http://www.universalmind.com/

The BlackBerry® PlayBook® Tablet Webcast series wrapped up a couple of weeks ago with the final session around BlackBerry App World™, and in my opinion, the entire series was a big success. I really hope everyone came away with something that you can use in your own applications so that we can get them up onto BlackBerry App World, and hopefully get a device out to you!

Over the course of the four webcasts that I took part in, we received hundreds of really great questions, and we tried to answer as many as we could while on the air. Going over the questions afterward, I wanted to post some of the most common questions that came in and address the most common themes that came up. In no particular order:

Q: What are the SDKs that will be available and when will they be released?
A: The BlackBerry PlayBook OS will support application development in Adobe® AIR®, HTML5 and BlackBerry® WebWorks™, Native C/C++ with support for OpenGL and Java. The Adobe AIR SDK for BlackBerry PlayBook is available today. More details on the availability of SDKs for developing in HTML5, BlackBerry WebWorks, Native and Java will be coming soon.

Q: Is Flash Builder 4 required to build apps?
A: No – in fact, anything that can generate a SWF file can be used to build BlackBerry PlayBook tablet apps. Webcast #2 went through how to use Adobe® Flash® Professional CS5 and we are planning on building a Flash Pro plugin to help developers build apps. The webcast also showed how to use the command line to package an application for the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet. We also recently released a new version of the SDK which works seamlessly with the preview version of Adobe Flash Builder 4.5 (Burrito) as well.

Q. What types of persistent storage are available on the BlackBerry PlayBook?
A. There are 3 different types of persistent storage on the data:

1. SharedObject – This is the standard AIR SharedObject API used to store limited amounts of data in very quick access memory. Typically, you’ll store variables or other information that you need to access very quickly or frequently in the SharedObject store.
2. SQLite – The standard AIR SQLite API’s can be used to leverage the SQLite database on the device. Generally, you’ll be storing any medium to large sized data in the SQLite database. Since SQLite is in memory, this is typically the best combination between speed and size for data storage.
3. FileIO – The standard AIR File I/O API’s can be used to store data or files in the device memory. Any types of multimedia or images will typically be stored using File I/O. The tradeoff for being able to store essentially any file size is that this is typically the slower of the mechanisms for retrieving stored information from the persistent store, however for any type of media files, this is the recommended approach for storing them on the device.

The other major line of questions that came during the webcast focused on BlackBerry App World and the free BlackBerry PlayBook tablet offer. We’ve since been able to clarify the offer and provide more details on it, which you can find here.

The press release posted here also offers a lot of answers to the questions that came in during the session. Also, at Adobe MAX, there was a presentation given that will undoubtedly help out a lot of developers in building UI’s for apps: Developing Adobe AIR apps for the BlackBerry Tablet OS.

For even more information on developing for the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet and answers to questions, please feel free to watch any of the webcasts that were recorded:

Week 1

• Setting up your development environment
• Creating your first “hello world” Adobe AIR application for the BlackBerry PlayBook
• Packaging your Adobe AIR application for the BlackBerry PlayBook
• How to test your applications on the device simulator

Week 2

• using Flash Builder and Flash Professional to create applications targeting the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet
• Use the Adobe AIR SDK and BlackBerry Tablet OS SDK to create applications for the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet
• Test and Debug your application using Flash Builder and the BlackBerry Tablet Simulator

Week 3

• Adobe AIR 2.5 device integration APIs
• BlackBerry Tablet OS device integration APIs
• Testing and Debugging your application BlackBerry Tablet Simulator

Week 4

• Creating an application icon for the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet
• Building optimized screens for the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet
• Learn how to apply skins to your UI controls

Week 5

• Walkthrough of the BlackBerry App World Submission Process
• Selling your app on BlackBerry App World and how revenue is paid
• Overview of the BlackBerry Commercial Services (Advertising and Payment)
• Best Practices for Global Distribution of your Application

And lastly, I have also started up a forum thread on the BlackBerry Developer Forums in order to try and get more of your questions answered. If you have anything specific you’d like answered, please feel free to post a message on the forum so the entire community can benefit from the information.

Please feel free to post a question in the comments section below if you’d like. Thanks for tuning in to the webcasts and joining us on Dev Blog!

You’ve asked for it, now we’re delivering it! Over the past couple of months, the BlackBerry® developer community has taken a strong interest in some of the sample code that we’ve published, and with the demand coming in, we decided to build some fully functional Web Apps for you guys to take apart, dissect, and use however you’d like – including copying and pasting code into your own web applications. The first in a slew of new sample web apps will be released into the Developer Resource Center over the coming weeks!

The two samples that we’ve just posted are an RSS reader and Weather application. Both of these apps are 100% Web Apps built entirely using web technologies (HTML, JS, CSS). That’s right, not a single shred of Java® code in either of these!

The RSS application allows you to set any RSS feed you’d like and pull down the content on the fly. It lets you manage those RSS feeds in an easy-to-use UI, and it stores your feeds for you so they’ll always be ready when you are. This sample app demonstrates the use of tight integration with other apps (BlackBerry® Browser and Messaging applications), GPS, and integration into the BlackBerry Menu as well as how to go out over the network to retrieve and use content effectively.

The Weather application really demonstrates the blending of a fantastic UI with functionality. I have to say that this one really looks great, and is so easy to use! This sample app also shows off the use of a great UI, File I/O, GPS, and solid integration into the BlackBerry Menu.

Post a comment below and let us know what you think of these two samples, or the types of samples you’d like to see in the future.

I was recently asked to pick the top three sessions that I’m most looking forward to, and quite frankly, it’s shaping up to be harder than I had expected. With so many sessions to check out this year – especially for web developers – narrowing it down to only three is really quite a task. Here goes!

DEV10: The New BlackBerry Widget SDK
The BlackBerry Widget SDK is really exploding on the scene with some huge momentum behind it. Between the power of the BlackBerry Widget APIs and the new BlackBerry WebKit rendering engine, web developers are finding it incredibly easy to jump aboard the BlackBerry Widget SDK to create rich, integrated apps for their user base. It’s never been easier to develop for the BlackBerry platform! Coming from a .NET background, I found it incredibly easy to download the BlackBerry Widget SDK and BlackBerry Web Plug-in for Microsoft® Visual Studio and get cracking on developing fantastic apps.

In this session, Adam Stanley (Application Development Consultant) will be going over the BlackBerry APIs and explaining how to leverage the BlackBerry Widget SDK to create applications that can easily be distributed to users through mobile storefronts and other mechanisms.

DEV48: Introduction to the BlackBerry WebKit: The New Power Behind Web and Widget Applications
WebKit has become the industry standard for mobile web browsing, and for good reason. I’m incredibly excited to hear what the community has to say about the new BlackBerry WebKit browser at DEVCON, and I’m definitely pumped for this session to introduce so many web developers to the benefits of leveraging this new engine!

During this session, Tim Neil (Manager of Development Tools) and George Staikos (Senior Director of the BlackBerry® Torch™ Mobile Team) will cover how to leverage the benefits granted by the WebKit engine on the BlackBerry platform. They’ll discuss a lot of the differences between the old browsers and the new ones, and provide a little bit of insight into where the platform is heading.

COM28: Anatomy of a Real-world BlackBerry Widget
We’ve been asked so many times to show people an example of a real-world BlackBerry Widget, since they had never seen one before. To which I always smile and reply that that’s the point of building a Widget – so the end user doesn’t actually know it’s a web application. A BlackBerry Widget can be as complex or as simple as a web application can be; however, to the end user, it’ll look exactly the same as a Java® application, which is why I’m so excited about this session.

I’ve been working with the guys over at Toumetis to develop BlackBerry Widgets, and they’ve come up with some pretty impressive Widgets, to say the least. During the session, Mark Wilnerd and Andrew Terry from Toumetis will discuss the ins and outs of the BlackBerry Widget SDK in relation to their experiences developing a mobile banking solution.

Phew! Given all of the fantastic content being delivered in San Francisco this year, it was really not easy to pick out only three sessions! I’m so excited to be attending the event this year, and it’s sure to be packed with opportunities to meet you all and find out what you’re working on. Let me know in the comments below which sessions you’re most looking forward to!

Hope to see you all there, and please do come over and say hi!

Here at Research In Motion® (RIM), we’re incredibly excited about this development. The support of WebKit and HTML5 in BlackBerry® 6 – along with the recent introduction of BlackBerry® Widgets – shows the way the platform is changing and growing for web developers looking to make rich, compelling apps that have the same look, feel and features as a native application.

HTML5 contains lots of new elements for developers to leverage, including elements to help make web content easier to index and optimize for search engines; elements that enable you to play media in your application; elements that let you take it offline; and a plethora of other features to make your application a thing of beauty. The BlackBerry implementation of WebKit and HTML5 will be no different – going forward with the BlackBerry 6 Browser and Widget engines, you’ll be able to leverage all of the same elements that you would for any desktop browsers with virtually no limitations.

These elements include:

• Canvas
• Parsing
• Video
• Audio
• Forms (partial implementation)
• Geolocation
• Workers
• Timers

With the added capabilities of HTML5 to the BlackBerry® Browser, web developers will be able to create content that they would have never been able to run through the mobile web before – compelling games, interactive media, 3D graphics, and the list goes on. HTML5 looks to be an invaluable tool for web developers around the world!

Here’s a few blogs and websites with some examples of the compelling features of HTML5:

• HTML5Demos
• HTML5Gallery
• YouTube
• VisionWidget

Please feel free to post your HTML5 experiences so far, and share with us how you plan to leverage this exciting new technology!

By leveraging the Invoke API, you can invoke virtually any other application on the BlackBerry smartphone through a simple API call, where you’ll set a parameter for the app you want to invoke and then pass in any parameters that application is expecting. Right out of the box, the BlackBerry API contains these APIs to invoke:

• Address Book

<script type="text/javascript">
var contact = new blackberry.pim.Contact();
contact.firstName = 'Joe';
contact.lastName = 'Smith';

var args = new blackberry.invoke.AddressBookArguments(contact);
args.view = 0;

blackberry.invoke.invoke(blackberry.invoke.APP_ADDRESSBOOK, args);
</script>

• BlackBerry Browser

<script type="text/javascript">
var args = new blackberry.invoke.BrowserArguments('http://www.blackberry.com');
blackberry.invoke.invoke(blackberry.invoke.APP_BROWSER, args);
</script>

• Calendar

<script type="text/javascript">
var appt = new blackberry.pim.Appointment();
appt.summary = 'Get Together For lunch';

var args = new blackberry.invoke.CalendarArguments(appt);
args.view = 0;

blackberry.invoke.invoke(blackberry.invoke.APP_CALENDAR, args);  // Calendar
</script>

• Camera

<script type="text/javascript">

var args = new blackberry.invoke.CameraArguments();
args.view = 1; // Video Recorder

blackberry.invoke.invoke(blackberry.invoke.APP_CAMERA, args);  // Video Recorder Application
</script>

• Maps

<script type="text/javascript">
var args = new blackberry.invoke.MapsArguments(43.26, -80.30);
blackberry.invoke.invoke(blackberry.invoke.APP_MAPS, args);
</script>

• MemoPad

<script type="text/javascript">
var memo = new blackberry.pim.Memo();
memo.title = 'Oranges I like';
memo.note = 'navel';

var args = new blackberry.invoke.MemoArguments(memo);
args.view = 0; // New

blackberry.invoke.invoke(blackberry.invoke.APP_MEMOPAD, args);  // Memo Pad
</script>

• Email

<script type="text/javascript">

var args = new blackberry.invoke.MessageArguments('foo@domain.com', 'hello', 'world');
args.view = blackberry.invoke.MessageArguments.VIEW_NEW; // New

blackberry.invoke.invoke(blackberry.invoke.APP_MESSAGES, args);  // New Message
</script>

• Phone

<script type="text/javascript">

var args = new blackberry.invoke.PhoneArguments('555-555-5555', true);
args.view = blackberry.invoke.PhoneArguments.VIEW_CALL;

blackberry.invoke.invoke(blackberry.invoke.APP_PHONE, args);
</script>

• Search

<script type="text/javascript">
var args = new blackberry.invoke.SearchArguments('build', 'Joe');
blackberry.invoke.invoke(blackberry.invoke.APP_SEARCH, args);  // Search
</script>

• Tasks

<script type="text/javascript">
var task= new blackberry.pim.Task();
task.summary = 'Pick up Milk';

var args = new blackberry.invoke.TaskArguments(task);
args.view = 0;

blackberry.invoke.invoke(blackberry.invoke.APP_TASKS, args);
</script>

• Any other Java application on the device

<script type="text/javascript">

var args = new blackberry.invoke.JavaArguments('net_rim_bb_memo_app');
blackberry.invoke.invoke(blackberry.invoke.APP_JAVA, args);  // Java

</script>

By leveraging these APIs, you can come up with a compelling user story or use case to design your application as a one-stop shop for anyone looking to organize their daily tasks through your app. Open an email, save a meeting invite, set GPS to locate the meeting room, associate tasks with that meeting – these are just a few of the countless ways you can easily leverage the Invoke APIs, taking your BlackBerry Widget to the next level and embracing the Super App concept!

Have you leveraged any of the Invoke APIs yet? Please share your stories with us here in the comments.

One of the questions I am asked quite often is how to get a BlackBerry® Widget into the market, or how to deploy it to users. The answer to this requires a bit of an understanding of the underlying technology of a BlackBerry Widget.

In the end, the BlackBerry Widget is a Java® application that leverages the BrowserField2 component. Since it’s a Java application, your Widget can be deployed using any of the available means that any other BlackBerry® application would leverage. Something to be aware of, however, is that your application will require to be signed using the Research In Motion® (RIM) code signing keys. Once signed, your application can then be deployed in one of four typical means:

1. BlackBerry App World™
BlackBerry App World is the marketplace provided by RIM to deploy your apps, and is considered to be a premier vehicle to distribute your application. Mike has written a terrific summary of some of the new features available in BlackBerry App World 2.0.

2. Over The Air (OTA) download through the BlackBerry Browser
If you’ve developed a BlackBerry Widget, I’m guessing that you’re probably a web developer, which means odds are pretty good that you’ve got a website. OTA deployment can be done through the BlackBerry® Browser, where the user will download the application from your website. Since the browser comes installed by default on every single BlackBerry smartphone sold today, you have a tremendous amount of consumers out there that are only a few clicks away from downloading your application!

When deploying OTA, all you’ll need to do is host the JAD file with the respective COD files for your application and then point the URL to the JAD file. It’s the same thing as posting a file to download on a website – just use a href=”[path to my jad file]“ to link to your JAD and allow the user to download the application.

Take a look at how this feature is set up in this fantastic video going over the OTA download through the BlackBerry Browser. Also, here’s a great KB article outlining the steps needed to download over WAP.

3. OTA Push via BlackBerry Enterprise Server
A BlackBerry Enterprise Server administrator is able to push applications to any BlackBerry smartphone connected to that particular BlackBerry Enterprise Server. One thing to note is that utilizing BlackBerry Enterprise Server Push to send applications down to BlackBerry smartphones is only available via corporate environments, since it requires a BlackBerry Enterprise Server.

The steps for creating a software configuration to deploy third-party apps from a BlackBerry Enterprise Server over a wireless network can be found in this knowledge base article. Additionally, here’s a great video highlighting how to accomplish this type of deployment and some of the interesting features and options available to you!

4. BlackBerry Desktop Manager
You can use this option for most applications; it uses the BlackBerry Application Loader that is installed as part of the BlackBerry Desktop Software. An automated application installer installs the application’s .alx file locally on the user’s computer. The user then navigates to the file and installs it on their BlackBerry smartphone.

A detailed step by step guide is available through this video on the BlackBerry Developers Website.

For further reading, Andre Fabris has written a fantastic tutorial outlining all of the deployment models available for you to distribute your application to market as quickly and effectively as possible.

Depending on which deployment model – or combination of models – you choose, there will likely be a few prerequisites that you’ll need to set up in order to effectively make use of them. We’ve provided a document which summarizes the methods and the prerequisites that you’ll have to set up before leveraging them.

For more information and demonstrations on how to leverage these deployment mechanisms, I’d encourage you to take a look at the BlackBerry Developer Video Library, where there are several videos that provide in-depth explanations of the entire deployment process for a BlackBerry Application. I’d like to strongly encourage everyone to keep up the hard work, and leverage these deployment methods to get your apps into consumers’ hands!

In this blog post, I’m going to show you an easy way to have your JavaScript code fired up again and running as soon as the device is woken up from the backlight going out.  The method below actually came about because of the need to check if a session had expired while the user was still on a webpage, so there are some serious real world applications that could benefit from using this method.  This workaround won’t actually prevent the backlight from dimming or the device from locking; it will instead re-trigger the JavaScript code once the device is woken up from the backlight being dimmed, acting as a good substitute to the setTimeout function.

The workaround is really just as simple as using an iframe with a meta tag.  The solution consists of two files; index.html and autorefresh.html.

index.html

<html>
<head>
<title>This is a test</title>
<script type="text/javascript">
function wakeUp() {
var time = new Date();
document.getElementById('spnTime').innerHTML = time.toLocaleTimeString();
}
</script>
</head>
<body>
The time is: <span id="spnTime"></span>
http://autorefresh.html
</body>
</html>

autorefresh.html

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
<META HTTP-EQUIV="refresh" CONTENT="5"/>
<META HTTP-EQUIV="CACHE-CONTROL" CONTENT="PUBLIC"/>
<script language="javascript">window.parent.wakeUp();</script>
</head>
<body>
iframe
</body>
</html>

This code will actually trigger the JavaScript function ‘wakeUp’ every five seconds.  When the device backlight dims, it will stop running; however, once the device backlight is activated again, the refresh meta tag triggers and begins its timing again. Five seconds after waking up, it will call wakeUp again. So a real world application of this could have the wakeUp function check to see if the user’s session has timed out, and if so, perform a JavaScript redirect to the login page in order to start up a new session again.

More information on meta tags can be found here: http://www.w3schools.com/tags/tag_meta.asp

If you have any other workarounds for this or any other common issues, please feel free to post them here to help the community out!

JavaScript is a trademark of Sun Microsystems, Inc.

One of the questions I’m seeing coming across my desk more frequently is “How do I set my default browser to be the BlackBerry® Browser in Microsoft® Visual Studio®?”

The beauty of using the BlackBerry Web Plug-In for Microsoft Visual Studio is that it integrates seamlessly in with the development environment. What that means is that you would switch over to the BlackBerry simulator as your default browser the same way you would switch browsers if you were debugging a desktop site.

Before we get into the specific steps, I’d like to quickly go over what the Browse With button actually does and how it differs from debugging a website. When you set a browser using the Browse With functionality, and select to Browse the page immediately, you are actually using the preview version of the website so you won’t be hitting any of the breakpoints that you normally would. That’s an important concept to remember when using this feature, and something that I’m sure most web developers have done at some point before. In the Browse With window, there’s also an option to set the browser as your default browser. If you hit cancel after setting a default browser, that browser selection is still your default browser so you’re now able to debug using that browser.

Some more documentation and further details can be found on Microsoft’s website and blog.

So now let’s get into how you can set the BlackBerry Browser to be the default browser to debug your web application in. Assuming you already have a web application ready to debug, right click on the web application in the Solution Explorer and select “Browse With…”

Now select the BlackBerry Browser and click “Set as Default” (as shown in the first picture above). Next click on “Cancel” since we want to debug the site instead of run it in release mode. Now you should be back in the base Microsoft Visual Studio window. Since you’ve hit cancel on the Browse With window, your default browser will be set to the BlackBerry Browser however you won’t have any other browsers running, and you’ll be in coding mode in Microsoft Visual Studio.

To begin debugging, either push “F5” or from the debug menu, select “Start Debugging”.

This will launch the BlackBerry Smartphone Simulator, and you’ll be able to begin debugging your website.

I hope that answers some of the questions around the Browse With functionality and how to set the BlackBerry Browser to be the default browser when using Microsoft Visual Studio. Please feel free to leave any comments or questions below.

The Push Service is comprised of three components:

1. The server side push application: Using the WAP 2.2 standard, the server component which is used to host and push data down to the smartphone.
2. Client side application: The application installed on a user’s BlackBerry smartphone which listens for a push coming from the server.
3. The BlackBerry Infrastructure: Provides the middleware that receives requests to push data from the content provider, and then delivers the given data to the associated client application on the BlackBerry smartphone.

Until recently this functionality was only available to Java developers for the BlackBerry platform. Using the BlackBerry Widget SDK, a web developer can easily leverage the BlackBerry push technology to keep their BlackBerry Widget up to date with real time data.  Using the JavaScript API’s, a web developer can open a port to listen for pushed data on start up, and set an event handler for when that data is pushed down to the application. The event will be fired once the application detects that data has been sent to the device and you’ll be able to handle that data in real time. With that data, you can update the onboard SQLite database, update the UI of the application, store that data in a flat file or use it in whichever way you see fit.

Here’s a code example of how to leverage data:

The BlackBerry Widget SDK really simplifies the process of utilizing the BlackBerry push technology, and allows you to keep data up to date in real time.  Finance, news, sports and gaming are just some of the fields that could benefit by providing real time updates and pushing them down to the device.

One of the other major benefits of utilizing BlackBerry push technology is that your application no longer needs to poll a server to see if there’s new data.  By pushing data down to the device, instead of polling, your application will save bandwidth usage, and battery life making your application more user-friendly.

I hope that you’ll take a look at the push lab posted on the BlackBerry Developer website to develop your own BlackBerry Widget utilizing the BlackBerry push technology.

• BlackBerry Push Lab Demo
• BlackBerry Push API White Paper
• BlackBerry Widget SDK